Personal Blog of Ratish Naroor

Tag Archives: lavana thailam

I happened to see a recent youtube video prepared by Dr.N Gopalakrishnan (titled – Lavana Thailam), who is the Director of Indian Institute of Scientific Heritage. He is a rank holder in pharmaceutical chemistry and a well educated scientist. I have seen many of his speeches on the internet and they make much sense to me. There was a recent video that he prepared himself regarding the ‘lavana thailam ‘ and would like to fight against this misleading so-called ayurvedic medicine for weight loss and maintain body figure. Many companies who make this oil and does great marketing are the main culprit here and I would like to share how not to fall into their marketing strives.

Recently Dr. Gopalkrishnan got an interesting question from an Ayurveda student regarding lavana oil, while giving a lecture on lavana thailam , on whether there are any validity on the medicinal value for this oil. Gopalkrishnan made sure that he communicates this well to the students so that they too don’t follow the foot steps of current aurvedic doctors. The lavana tailam is purely a misleading and non-worthy oil which does not help weight loss or helps bring body figure or even have any medicinal components which kills extra fat in your body. Its been promoted and marketed really well so that the people fall under the assumption that it can help solve their most concerning issue of obesity or figure less body.

How Lavana thailam is not a ayurvedic medicine?

There are many proven thoughts on how Lavana tailam can’t be a medicine.

Various companies claim that this oil has rock salt in the oil. Any average science student knows that no salt can be mixed or joined with a oil. ‘lavanam’ means salt compounds and the name lavana oil itself is not accurate. The salts like NaCl will only dissolve in water.

There is no mentions in historical ayurveda studies regarding an oil mixture like this.

No proven records or post analysis on how many positive results are shown with this oil.

People buy the medicine after watching television commercials. Sales are in crores because of the demand it generated after marketing with ads.

No chemical reasoning behind the composition behind this medicine.

Does Lavana thailam have side effects ?

Dr. Gopalkrishnan clearly mentions that any ayurvedic medicine can have side effects if they are not prepared in the correct way it should be made and not follow the ayurvedic science. As this oil have no science behind the preparation and is purely an assumption that it can help, there can definitely be some side effects (may be for your next generation). You can never prove that the side effects that you are seeing on your body or your child’s body is because of the lavana thailam and hence its a win win situation for the companies who are selling it.

Major retailers who are making money by selling this misleading product ?

Ayurcare – They are major player behind promoting this oil. There misleading ads can be viewed here and here.

All major ayurvedic outlets – even kottakal sells it in Kerala and outside Kerala. Dr.N Gopalkrishnan shows his unhappiness when he finds that these genuine ayurvedic centers are selling the products just because of the demand and marketing pitch.

I was surprised how the company managed to add tons of misleading positive reviews on all leading internet forums (mostly indusladies forum), a few home remedy blogs (you can pay them to get an article added with links to where you can buy the product – kind of affiliate marketing) and other websites. I was even able to find the product being sold in Amazon.com at $ 10 with zero users reviews (which clearly shows that users don’t want to review the product after wasting their money).